Letter: Stop drugs from entering country

Friday

Nov 24, 2017 at 1:59 PM

By Daniel Setzer

Is there no way to stop drug abuse and the flow of drugs? Sure, we’ve heard about curbing the prescriptions of opioids. But dope, legal and illegal, flows profusely through our country, and it is not slowing down. Addicts continue with their abuse, creating problems for themselves and us as well. We as citizens and taxpayers continue to pay. We pay for the crime, injuries, and loss of lives. We pay for police, ER and hospital doctors and nurses, detox and rehab, courts, jails, judges, admin. It goes on and it is going to keep on. I realize my failures as a parent. I see the struggles of addiction and I’m seeking real solutions.

The current political talk is about opioid treatment. But it seems the only people that get the addiction situation in this country, besides addicts themselves, are the families and loved ones. Our first responders, police, doctors, ER nurses, and rehab and detox technicians understand very well and they do all they can. But they are overwhelmed. Many of the folks in leadership positions seem to not understand. Nor does the writer from the recent article “Opioid crisis familiar in US history.” Current treatments and initiatives to address drug abuse are not good enough. I haven’t read or seen any action to control the flow of illegal drugs. We are not addressing the root cause of our drug abuse problem, which is the source and availability of dope. The costs will only continue in the form of resources, tax dollars and lives. We must stop the flow of dope.

The issues of addiction we all face as a nation far surpass any this country has ever experienced. This country has never had the issue of addiction affect our courts, jails and prisons, hospitals and rehab facilities, tax on resources, overdoses and death as we are currently experiencing. A large part of that is because there were deterrents before. As the article’s writer mentioned, laws were enacted to deter drug use. There are no deterrents now. The US has almost twice the prison population as the next industrialized country; much of that due to drug related crimes. The users and dealers do not fear the law and convicts ride the revolving door around the court system. Gangs control parts of our cities and even small towns. Dope is in every town in the United States. It affects all of us in some way.

Illegal dope comes through our borders by land, sea, and air. But most illegal dope comes through Mexico. This issue needs to be addressed separately from immigration. Foreign countries have made billions from the drug use in the US. Billions more has been made here in the US. And we should question; who is selling all this dope on US soil, and who is making all the money? The neighborhood junkie? Punk gang members? I don’t believe that. We must create deterrents and search out all dope dealers, especially those in the higher level of distribution. Sentencing must be painful. Bust them for life, just like the lives they have been destroying.

The success rate of all rehab facilities is very low, less than 40% for the most successful (but altogether much lower than that). Yet the treatment professionals tell us that, first, the addict must want to be helped. I think most all addicts want help. And the further they sink into addiction the more they wish for help. The cravings of addiction pull the body in one direction while the desire and reasoning to seek help creates part of their struggles. Current treatment is not effective, yet we are all paying the price.

We will continue to pay at a greater rate for the foreseeable future.

Families and loved ones need comprehensive resources to help the addicted people. Loved ones act with emotion trying to help our addicted friends and family members, and that doesn’t work.

Comprehensive info for families and friends needs to be developed and widely distributed. There are many agencies such as detox, rehab and treatment. And there are so many types of treatment; insured (profit) treatment, nonprofits, Christian and religious treatments. But who can navigate through all of them? The addicts certainly can’t, nor can the loved ones. Applications that take days or weeks to get into a facility. Courts say it’s a substance abuse problem. Health care says it’s a disease. And then there are the medications to treat the addictions, which often makes it worse. Time is against them, and the addicts don’t wait. They go back to the streets.

Our country needs to stop the flow of narcotic drugs. Every mode of entry for illegal dope needs to be secured. There needs to be significant deterrents for all dope dealers so that there is real fear of the law.

We need to find better solutions and reconsider the current treatments and our thinking of addiction.

These addicts are someone’s child or loved one. Parents, such as myself, blame ourselves and lose hope. The addiction crisis is going to be with us, as a nation, for many years. We are going to pay in many ways for years. And I believe we need new directions in our approach to addiction and drug abuse.

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